International Journal of Environmental Science and Development

Abstract—The world has been exposed to the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) since late 2019. A global pandemic has shifted health concerns from air pollution effects to novel coronavirus disease, similarly to those in Bangkok. Although Bangkokians have experienced severe PM2.5 conditions since the last quarter of 2017, the related agencies have failed to elucidate the crisis. This has been because the fundamental air quality management is focused on controlling emissions. The Thai government has sluggishly determined the situations that lead to the inability to clean up its air. How are air pollution and disease linked? This article points to the importance of source management. The lockdown measures revealed reduced traffic rate and PM2.5 concentrations. Such a close relationship has shed insights of the consequences of working from home (WFH). The link between disease and air pollution includes (i) WFH regulation is one specific way to prevent the transmission of disease, (ii) this guideline decreases traffic congestion in an urban city which is one path of diminished pollution discharge and (iii) then noticeably followed by PM2.5 reductions. Again, the magnitude of source control is crucial. Reducing pollutions from traffic by means of WFH has illustrated this accomplishment. In the midst of this crisis, moving to a new normal role supports remaining protected from both air pollution and the pandemic. Nevertheless, the sustainability of transportation control in an overcrowded city like Bangkok should be considered as a vital pathway to tackle air pollution.

Index Terms—Air quality monitoring, COVID-19, Sustainable cities and communities, traffic index.

Sopa Chinwetkitvanich is with the Department of Sanitary Engineering, Faculty of Public Health, Mahidol University, Thailand (e-mail: Sopa.chi@mahidol.ac.th).
Thawat Ngamsritrakul is with the Defense Engineering and Technology, Faculty of Engineering, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand (e-mail: kim.ngamsritrakul@gmail.com).
Sirima Panyametheekul is with the Department of Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand (e-mail: Sirima.P@chula.ac.th).

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Cite: Sopa Chinwetkitvanich, Thawat Ngamsritrakul, and Sirima Panyametheekul, "New Normal Role in PM2.5 Reduction in Bangkok," International Journal of Environmental Science and Development vol. 12, no. 4, pp. 100-106, 2021.

Copyright © 2021 by the authors. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited (CC BY 4.0).